if it ain't broke, don't fix it
by cyanoscarlet
Summary: Once upon a time, on a sunny afternoon in Bangkok, Phichit Chulanont broke the door of the fridge twice, then broke the fridge down completely.


Once upon a time, on a sunny afternoon in Bangkok, Phichit Chulanont broke the door of the fridge twice, then broke the fridge down completely.

The big, old, white box had been a wedding gift to his parents, at that time the latest model of its kind. Among all the appliances in their house, it had been the only one that stood the test of time, lasting even longer than the old analog TV set. (His mother had been adamant about keeping it around despite the increasingly bad reception it got and the colors bleeding over all the wrong places. She'd changed her mind when she'd won a new flatscreen unit from a company raffle draw.)

In any case, this refrigerator was the last thing in the house that dated back to the humble beginnings of the Chulanont family - given that his older sister was born two years after their marriage, and she's now twenty-four, the fridge must be a little over twenty-six years old.

.

 _"And you're telling us this, why again?" Leo sits across him and Guanghong on the bed, fiddling with his tablet's notifications. Definitely no social media again until after the US Nationals._

 _Phichit props his feet up the mess of pillows and blankets, putting down his beloved Galaxy Note 7 beside the gold medal. "Just remembered it all of a sudden."_

.

As with the TV set, Pirawan Chulanont had been even more vocal against replacing the old fridge. "Only the door hinges are rusted. I'm not replacing it while it's completely functional," she argued back from the kitchen sink while Siriwan carefully shut the door, a bottle of cold water tucked in her arm.

"Mother, you cannot make us ' _support the door with both hands when you open and close it_ ' forever," the eldest of the three siblings countered back, reading verbatim the hastily-scribbled reminder stuck to the door with a Thai Skating Federation commemorative magnet. "You know how Phichit raids this thing almost every day."

"Well, he'll have to learn to 'raid the thing' less, then," their mother said simply. "He's a competitive skater; he has to eat more real food and less sweets."

Siriwan sighed in defeat. As the future doctor of the house, she was inclined to agree.

Just then, Phichit burst into the entryway, a medium-sized package in his arms. "I'm home, everyone! Yuuri sent us some Japanese snacks."

Anchalee, the youngest, squealed from behind him, also having just arrived from high school. "Ahhhhhh yesssss! Is there Pocky?! Is there?! Brother Yuuri knows I love the strawberry-flavored ones!"

The young girl excitedly pushed her brother to the kitchen, where Siriwan opened the package to sort its contents. "I'll put these in the fridge for you guys," she offered, carefully balancing the door on a low makeshift stand, then slowly pushing both implements carefully to open the refrigerator wide enough.

.

 _"No, Brother Yuuri has not heard of that until now." Yuuri emerges from the bathroom, wiping his hands dry with a paper towel. "Is that why Anchalee has been avoiding me back when we visited your place?"_

 _"What can I say? You broke her heart," Phichit mock-accuses his good friend. "She hates anything with matcha the most."_

 _"Speaking of Pocky flavors," Guanghong pipes up, "which flavor does Yuuri like?" Suddenly, the room is quiet as the three young skaters wait for his answer with bated breath._

 _"... Chocolate, I guess," Yuuri mutters after a couple of minutes._

 _Phichit immediately wiggles his eyebrows with glee. "I'll make sure to tell Victor later!"_

 _"PHICHIT, NO."_

.

As mentioned earlier, it happened one sunny afternoon in Bangkok.

Phichit returned home for lunch, feeling incredibly accomplished after that morning's practice run. Landing his quadruple toe loop perfectly always gave him a euphoric rush, and he was raring to go back to the rink and skate some more until dinner time. The Cup of China is fast approaching; he can't waste a single minute.

But first, food. Some dessert wouldn't hurt. And iced water - lots of it.

He hastily opened the fridge to get the water and a box of matcha Pocky - and froze in place when he heard a metallic creak and snap. Suddenly, the door felt a lot heavier than usual.

Phichit fearfully peered over the white door. The bottom hinge had completely come off, the holes in which the lone screw was supposed to be rusted away beyond any and all recognition.

Somewhere in his jumbled thoughts, he vaguely remembered his older sister grumbling about having to install a stupid improvised harness for the top hinge because keeping the top screw in place would not be enough to support the door's weight.

He inspected said harness from the periphery of his vision. It had all but snapped upon taking the brunt of the sudden impact earlier.

 _Siriwan will be so pissed off_ , he mentally groaned. And if there's anything Phichit doesn't want to deal with at this crucial point in time, it's an angry Siriwan. With a near-exasperated sigh, he carefully sealed the fridge shut again. He had more important things to do than this.

.

 _"I'll never understand why Mother still wanted that thing around, though," Phichit complains to the room at large. "Even if it was a wedding gift, it doesn't make sense to keep it if it's already broken."_

 _"Sentimental value runs deep, my good man," Leo recites, now leaning onto Guanghong's shoulder. "Besides, if it ain't broke, don't fix it."_

 _"They should still have gotten a new one," Phichit insists. "You gotta listen to reason."_

 _The three laugh in unison. Knowing how the seemingly perpetually happy and cheerful Thai usually takes things like this in stride, they find it amusing how this single incident sticks out like a bad sore thumb, he is actually griping about it._

 _Still, though... "That's what I told you when you insisted on marrying your phone."_

 _Phichit glares at Yuuri intensely, holding the bright green thing to his chest. "This is entirely different!" More laughter ensues._

.

Phichit ran back home halfway through his commute to the rink. How could he have forgotten his _phone_ , of all things? He dashed to his room and unplugged the fully-charged gadget from the dock. He also packed the power bank and some extra hand towels while he was at it.

Exhausted from his run, he made his way to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to get some water.

This time, the door completely fell off.

"What the fuck?!"

He completely forgot about the broken door - rather, how he'd just broken it hours earlier.

What the actual _fuck_.

 _You had one job,_ Phichit thought to himself. _One. Job._

If it weren't for his quick reflexes, he would have almost dropped the heavy thing. Once he regained his footing, he steadied the door with both hands and leaned it against the wall. Thankfully, none of the foodstuffs in it were damaged. (The eggs, especially. He wouldn't know what to do if _those_ were broken.)

(He'd be _dead_ , for starters. He just refused to admit it. Fortunately, no one was home to witness his blunder.)

Phichit called Celestino to inform that he was going to be late. He had a fridge door to fix.

But first, water - since the good old box was already wide open and all. Hah.

"What the hell?!" someone screamed from behind him, causing him to do a sudden spit take and drop the bottle he was drinking from. He didn't have time to be surprised at his ambusher, however, as the iced liquid splashed over the outlet to which the refrigerator was plugged, causing the thing to short-circuit and subsequently explode.

The kitchen was quiet as the machine made weird, whirring sounds before permanently dying down. Phichit found himself hanging on to his older sister, and she gripping tightly onto him, as well. They were frozen on the spot, both momentarily lost for words at what had just happened.

 _Well, that was underwhelming,_ was his first thought. _Sister looks pretty in her white uniform,_ was the second.

Siriwan voiced the third for him. " _Oh my god_."

The lock turned from outside, and their mother announced her return to the house at large. Upon reaching the kitchen, she dropped the groceries onto the floor in shock.

.

 _"So you're buying a new fridge," Yuuri closes the story, using a very unusual deadpan tone that he usually reserves for when he's one-hundred percent done with everything. He even skipped the entire flailing-around-like-a-crazed-chicken part._

 _"Yeah, that's pretty much it," Phichit affirms, nodding away as if nothing had happened. Leo and Guanghong hold on to each other on the bed, both speechless with shock._

 _The Japanese skater saunters over to the desk, upon which several printed catalogues of refrigerator models were stacked. "So_ that's _what these are for," he muses, pushing up his glasses as he read the fine print. "Why are_ you _looking these up, though?"_

 _"I'm paying for part of it because it was me who broke the old one." Phichit flops back onto the bed, tapping away at his phone again. "At least I have a good story to tell the children someday."_

 _Yuuri has nothing to say against that. He wonders how his friend will begin the tale when he does tell it. Knowing him, though, it would be somewhere along,_ "Once upon a time..."


End file.
